Blog Archive

Posts for December, 2009

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday voted 12-7 in support of a controversial Wisconsin judge’s nomination to the federal bench.

Judge Louis Butler must be confirmed by the full Senate before he can take a seat as a federal judge in Wisconsin's Western District. President Barack Obama nominated Butler, a former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice, to replace U.S. District Judge John Shabaz.

Wisconsin Democratic Sens. Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold voted to support Butler's nomination. All seven of the Republicans on the committee opposed the nomination. | Dec. 3, 2009»Read Full Blog Post(4)

Madison -- Gov. Jim Doyle appointed state Rep. Gary Sherman (D-Port Wing) to a seat on an appeals court Friday.

Doyle will later schedule a special election -- likely in the spring -- to fill Sherman’s seat in the Assembly, said Doyle spokesman Lee Sensenbrenner.

Democrats control the Assembly 52-46, with one independent. Sherman sits on the Joint Finance Committee, and his departure will open up a coveted seat on that budget-writing panel. | Dec. 7, 2009»Read Full Blog Post

Hyers most recently worked as a White House liaison to the Department of Veterans Affairs. He managed successful campaigns of Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter and U.S. Rep. Kirsten Gillebrand, of New York. Hyers also worked on the 2004 and 2008 presidential campaigns of John Edwards.

Madison -- The state Supreme Court hasn't formalized its new rule on when judges must disqualify themselves, but the dissent is in.

In a 4-3 vote, the court in October adopted a rule that said campaign contributions alone are not enough to force judges to recuse themselves from cases. In a conference Monday, Justice David Prosser and the others in the majority held off on approving the court order that would formalize that rule because Prosser wants to tweak the language in the new rule. He said he still supports the rule in principle, but thinks it could be clarified.

Even though the formal rule has not been set, Justice Ann Walsh Bradley read the dissent during the conference. She took issue with the original rule approved in October in part because it was written entirely by the Wisconsin Realtors Association and Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce. | Dec. 7, 2009»Read Full Blog Post

Madison -- State Supreme Court Justice Patience Roggensack says she voted for a new rule on judicial disqualification because she didn't want voters' court choices to be forced off cases because they received legal campaign contributions.

"Let me explain -- if a person made a lawful campaign contribution and that caused the justice to be disqualified from deciding legal issues presented to the court, all of the other voters who chose that justice because they believed he or she was fair, independent and knowledgeable about the law would have their votes cancelled because of the justice's disqualification," Roggensack wrote in an opinion piece published in the Journal Sentinel and Wisconsin State Journal.

"Furthermore, a campaign contribution could easily be used as a sword by someone who wanted to disqualify a justice, rather than by someone who supported the justice's election. In either case, the vast majority of the voters would have their votes in that election cancelled because the justice they voted for would be disqualified." | Dec. 8, 2009»Read Full Blog Post(1)

Jim Klauser, an early supporter of former U.S. Rep. Mark Neumann’s campaign for governor, says he is now supporting Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker.

In a letter he circulated on Monday, Klauser, a former aide to Gov. Tommy G. Thompson, urged support for Walker, saying he was impressed with the county executive's campaign. “He has sharpened his message,” Klauser said. “He has maintained his principles and integrity. We can expect the same in Madison.” | Dec. 8, 2009»Read Full Blog Post(1)

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted unanimously Thursday to move forward with the judicial nomination of a longtime Madison attorney.

William Conley, nominated by President Barack Obama to serve in Wisconsin’s Western District, still must be confirmed by the full Senate before he can join the federal bench.

Conley is one of two nominees being considered for two separate judicial appointments in the Western District. The other is former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Louis B. Butler, who also faces confirmation by the full Senate. | Dec. 10, 2009

Rep. Tammy Baldwin was out of pocket for a chunk of the action in the House last week after contracting what appears to be the swine flu, she said in a press statement Friday.

The Madison Democrat missed votes on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, after deciding to stay in her D.C. apartment to recover and avoid exposing her colleagues and others to the virus.

“Like many Americans, I’m feeling the effects of this nasty virus,” she said. “I very much regret missing House business, including floor consideration of a bill I strongly support to overhaul our financial system and ensure that Wall St. and big banks can no longer abuse the public trust. Thankfully, I am already beginning to feel better and hope to be back to full strength very soon.” | Dec. 11, 2009(3)

The president of a cleaning service awarded a $1.2 million contract to clean the Milwaukee County Courthouse and other county buildings says his campaign contributions played no role in the deal.

Edward M. Aprahamian Jr. said he's supported Walker financially "going back at least to 2002, long before any outsourcing of housekeeping had even been contemplated." Aprahamian is president of MidAmerican Building Services. The West Allis firm was awarded the contract by Walker's administration earlier this month.

Aprahamian gave Walker's campaign $1,000 on June 29. The county issued a "request for proposeals" on the cleaning contract July 31. Walker has long advocated privatizing various county services -- including custodial services -- as a way to save taxpayers' money. | Dec. 14, 2009»Read Full Blog Post(20)

A panel with representatives from the public and private sector gathered today to discuss the impact of the federal stimulus package in southeast Wisconsin. The panel was hosted by the Public Policy Forum at the Italian Community Center in Milwaukee.

Some of the issues discussed: a lack of stimulus money flowing to the private sector, whether the stimulus is just a stop-gap measure for state and local governments, the original intent of the stimulus paand why the Zoo Interchange wasn't on the list of stimulus projects.

Among the panelists were Pat Goss, Executive Director of the Wisconsin Transportation Builders Association; Art Harrington, Attorney at Godfrey & Kahn; Sharon Robinson, director of administration for the City of Milwaukee, state Rep. Jeff Stone (R-Greendale); and Mark Wagner, vice president of government relations for Johnson Controls. Journal Sentinel reporter Dave Umhoefer moderated the panel discussion. | Dec. 16, 2009»Read Full Blog Post(2)

President Barack Obama has offered to help Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett in next year’s gubernatorial campaign, Barrett said Wednesday.

Obama called Barrett on Tuesday to congratulate him on entering the campaign, according to Barrett and a White House official. Barrett said the president “said he’d help me any way he can,” but didn’t specify whether that included personal appearances or fundraising help.

After Gov. Jim Doyle decided not to seek re-election, the Obama administration strongly encouraged Barrett to run. The president met with Barrett last month shortly before the mayor decided to join the race. Political insiders believe Obama has a better chance of winning Wisconsin in 2012 with a Democrat as governor. | Dec. 16, 2009»Read Full Blog Post(7)

Note to investment salespeople looking to pitch Milwaukee County for a piece of its $1.7 billion pension fund:

Buzz off!

That's the policy approved this week by the county Pension Board, as a way to remove political pressure on the board and county employees to even listen to such sales appeals. | Dec. 17, 2009»Read Full Blog Post

Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner arrived in Copenhagen, Denmark on Thursday as part of a congressional delegation observing controversial UN climate talks.

The Menomonee Falls Republican is among a bipartisan group of 20 lawmakers on the trip led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). About 10,000 delegates from 193 countries have already spent more than a week debating the details of an international response to climate change. President Barack Obama is expected to arrive in Copenhagen for the talks Friday.

Sensenbrenner, the top Republican on a House climate change committee, wrote in a guest blog in the National Journal that he worried Obama will “commit the U.S. to more wasteful spending” as part of an international climate change agreement. He noted that the U.S. debt continues to rise as the country joins other developed nations on a proposal to include $10 billion in “starter funds” to help poor countries develop technology and mitigate the costs of addressing global warming. | Dec. 17, 2009»Read Full Blog Post(1)

A who's who of national conservative figures are criticizing President Barack Obama's pick for a federal judgeship in Wisconsin's Western district. The group -- which includes Ed Meese, a former attorney general under Ronald Reagan and Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform -- put out a joint statement on the blog of the conservative magazine The American Spectator saying Judge Louis Butler was "unfit for a lifetime appointment to the federal bench" because of his "far-left" political ideology. Butler awaits Senate confirmation.

A new study estimates that federal stimulus funding has softened the recession’s impact on poverty in Wisconsin.

Some 86,000 people were kept out of poverty in the state this year because the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act increased food stamp benefits, unemployment assistance and tax credits, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said today. | Dec. 17, 2009»Read Full Blog Post(3)

One Milwaukee police detective is joining the city’s Pension Board and another is leaving the panel.

In voting by city employees, Detective Gust Petropoulos won a hard-fought battle against Angela Henschel, a top city auditor, said Jerry Allen, the board’s executive director. Petropoulos will take office in January for a four-year term.

At the same time, Milwaukee Police Association Vice President Tom Fischer has handed in his resignation, effective in January. Fischer, a police detective, was defeated for re-election to the union board and is retiring from the Police Department, Allen said. A special election will be held March 12 to fill the remainder of Fischer’s term, which runs through 2012. | Dec. 17, 2009(1)

ABC World News Tonight featured Sen. Russ Feingold in a piece Monday on the Senate health bill. In it, the reporter asked senators if they had read the bill as they filed in for the early Monday morning vote to move forward with the measure.

Feingold was just one of four senators featured in the piece who said he actually read the bill. Take a look at the report here. | Dec. 22, 2009(10)

Lawyers are trying to remove state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman from a case over when police can place tracking devices on cars without search warrants, the Associated Press reports.

That brings to eight the number of cases where Gableman has been targeted for removal by criminal defense attorneys. They contend he has shown a bias against criminal defendants in campaign statements and in defending against allegations he lied in a campaign ad.

Gableman so far has refused to step aside and his colleagues have not yet ruled on whether they can or will remove him from the cases. The effort to remove Gableman comes as the court finds itself divided over recusal rules. | Dec. 23, 2009(9)

A liberal Democratic group has launched a series of television and online ads in Wisconsin urging Sen. Russ Feingold to demand that a government-run insurance plan be included in health care legislation.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a grass-roots organization with 300,000 members across the country, is running the ads on all the news shows in Milwaukee, Madison and Green Bay. The group is also paying for “robocalls” to 10,000 Wisconsinites a day in an effort to pressure Feingold to vote against a health care bill that does not include a so-called public option.

Feingold, who supports creating a government insurance plan, says he voted for the Senate bill, even though the legislation did not include a public option because he did not want the bill to languish in the Senate. But liberal groups say Feingold and other liberal Democrats should have done more to push for the public plan. | Dec. 30, 2009»Read Full Blog Post(1)

Sen. Herb Kohl continues to support Louis Butler's nomination to become a federal judge in Wisconsin's Western district, a spokeswoman said Wednesday. But Kohl spokeswoman Lynn Becker said she could not answer whether the senator would take concrete steps to push President Barack Obama to resubmit Butler's name to the Senate next year.

Butler was among seven nominees who failed to gain Senate approval before the chamber adjourned for the year. Republican leaders could have agreed to allow the nominations to continue pending in the Senate but insisted on sending the names back to the White House - effectively signaling their opposition to the nominees. Obama would have to send Butler's name back to the Senate if he still wants the judge to fill a slot on the federal bench. | Dec. 30, 2009(5)